After entering Kastamonu, Manuel allowed his soldiers to plunder the remaining Turkmen in the city for nearly a full day.
It was only at the end of dusk that he gave the order to stop the slaughter, and immediately summoned the representatives of the Roman people within the city.
Yes, even now, this city, which is predominantly Turk, still has a significant proportion of orthodox Romans, and this is one of the reasons why the Caesar dared to strike hard at the infidel Turks in the occupied territories.
After a good night's rest and personally reassuring the remaining citizens the next day, Manuel moved to the town center and gathered the cabinet members who were with the army, holding an impromptu Imperial Conference.
"No more small talk here, Serenus, start with you. Report on the recent movements of the Ottoman and allied forces." Due to being in wartime, they did not bother with any formalities, but kept everything simple.
Hearing the Caesar's words, the Chief Minister immediately stood up to report, "Reporting to Your Majesty, as of before our army recaptured Kastamonu, the Catholics west of the Sea of Marmara had already reached the city of Plovdiv in the Bulgaria region.
Now, more than half of the Bulgaria region has been liberated, and Fruzhin, the son of the former Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman, has also appeared, leading a volunteer army to participate.
He is now nominally a vassal of the Hungarians, and also a member of the Order of the Dragon founded by the former Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.
By the way, last month, His Highness Skanderbeg was also invited to join the Order of the Dragon." After Bosporus raised an army, he did not delay his duties, which naturally included assisting in organizing the war situation.
"Are they all Catholics now?" Manuel calmly interrupted Serenus when he said this.
"Uh, no, neither Prince Fruzhin nor Despot Skanderbeg have changed their orthodox faith." After a brief moment of surprise, the Chief Minister answered in detail based on previous investigations.
Hearing the reply, Manuel nodded thoughtfully, not responding directly, but letting the Chief Minister continue his report.
"Also, Lord Bey Halil has led the Aydin Restoration Army to control the entire region of Smyrna, and is approaching the remaining former Aydin territories, but he has not yet directly encountered the Ottoman Mahmud Pasha, so it is unknown how long this offensive can last.
And His Majesty Constantine has already campaigned to the Thessaly region and is about to control the area, which is truly gratifying, truly gratifying." When speaking of the achievements of Constantine XI, Serenus's expression grew increasingly joyful.
Manuel also noticed this last small change in Serenus, but he said nothing, instead feigning a satisfied smile as if he hadn't seen it, dismissing the Chief Minister and summoning other cabinet members forward.
After most of the affairs and prospects had been discussed, the Caesar declared the Imperial Conference concluded.
However, before it ended, he secretly had his attendant call Commander of the Guard Badars, as it seemed he had something to communicate with him in secret.
After everyone else, including the attendant, had left until only the monarch and his minister remained in the room, Manuel's expression relaxed considerably, and he personally poured a fruit wine for his trusted confidant.
His childhood friend, who also served as the head of the intelligence department and Commander of the Guard, also sat down as he wished, respectfully took the wine glass, and drank it in one gulp.
"How is the holy fire disease within the Ottoman territory?" After the Commander of the Guard finished his drink, the Caesar looked him directly in the eyes and asked with extreme gravity.
"As previously reported to Your Majesty, it is even more severe. Thanks to the actions of the intelligence department, the holy fire disease has begun to break out on a large scale within the Ottoman territory.
Large numbers of farmers, herders, and livestock have contracted gangrene, and from Plovdiv to Tokat, none are untouched by Saint Anthony's fire," the Commander of the Guard reported cautiously.
And the outbreak of holy fire disease caused by the actions of the intelligence department was indeed true.
Or rather, the holy fire disease currently raging within the Ottoman territory is indeed inextricably linked to Manuel.
The origin of the holy fire disease that caused such devastation to the Ottoman must be traced back to when Bosporus successfully nipped the holy fire disease in his own country in the bud.
At that time, after personally seeing those few rye stalks infected with ergot, Manuel immediately had a bold idea: to spread holy fire disease in the Ottoman to weaken its national strength and pave the way for his future conquests.
His idea was not unfounded: holy fire disease is essentially a fungal poisoning caused by ergot fungus infection, with the ergot alkaloids within the ergot fungus causing the poisoning.
After rye is infected, the pathogen overwinters as sclerotia or ergot; when it is harvested, a small part of the sclerotia is harvested along with the grain, while another part falls to the ground; these sclerotia remain dormant until they are under favorable weather conditions, then they revive and infect the grain.
And when rye grain is ground and ingested after being made into flour and baked, it can cause strange mental abnormalities and even hallucinations in the consumer, feeling as uncomfortable and nauseous as if their skin is burning or insects are crawling under their skin.
If consumption continues, the victim will experience convulsions and even gangrene due to the constriction of blood vessels in the limbs, leading to the loss of hands and feet.
In other words, holy fire disease is actually an agricultural disease.
However, in the late Middle Ages in which he now lived, no one knew that the essence of holy fire disease was an agricultural disease and not an infectious disease.
Moreover, this major plague, named after Saint Anthony, had a recorded mortality rate of 10% to 20% according to historical records.
As an agricultural disease, it already belonged to the group with a very high mortality rate.
And from an agricultural perspective, there was much that could be done.
The Ottoman Sultanate's agricultural foundation was already relatively weak; if a large-scale holy fire disease infection could occur within the Ottoman territory, it would naturally cause devastating damage to the Sultanate's national strength.
Therefore, Manuel chose to keep a portion of these rye infected with ergot fungus and secretly cultivated them for future use.
As he wished, the Ottoman quickly went to war with other countries, and after the harvest, he decided to gamble his diplomatic reputation with Bosporus and extensively engage in grain trade with the Ottoman.
Until last year, believing the time was ripe, he issued a secret order to the grassroots members of the intelligence department to infiltrate the Bosporus merchants and go deep into the Anatolia and Rumelia countryside of the Ottoman, selling large quantities of ergot-infected rye seeds mixed with normal seeds.
As a fungus, ergot can infect other normal rye seeds as long as it is mixed into the soil, and local farmers, accustomed to cultivating on the soft, easily tilled soil along the Mediterranean coast, do not have the habit of deep plowing, making them unable to mitigate the effects of ergot infection through daily cultivation.
And the common people at the bottom were extremely superstitious; even if they contracted the disease, they still firmly believed that the so-called holy fire disease was a divine punishment, and ergot was a gift from God, representing the blessing of angels, and would consume ergot like ordinary grain.
But even with such a foundation, a major outbreak of holy fire disease still required a period for the ergots to develop.
Therefore, he had people start distributing ergot as a source of disease between 1442 and 1443.
It was not until the autumn and winter of last year that holy fire disease began to break out on a small scale in Asia Minor and parts of Southwest Europe.
Under normal circumstances, a feudal state would have already noticed the anomaly and begun to find ways to deal with the situation.
Unfortunately, in wartime, due to the laissez-faire management adopted by successive Sultans towards the grassroots, the central government in Edirne, even if it wanted to provide disaster relief, lacked the administrative capacity to penetrate deep enough into the grassroots and could only let it run its course, praying that this plague would end as soon as possible.
Thus, everything unfolded in the worst possible direction, at least for the Ottoman…
After the holy fire disease was briefly suppressed by the spring and summer climate, Saint Anthony's fire returned in the autumn with even greater ferocity: holy fire disease broke out in various farmlands and pastures of Rumelia and Anatolia.
Tens of thousands of farmers, herders, and livestock died in agonizing hallucinations, uncultivated fields would fall into disuse, and almost all collected grain was a potential source of holy fire disease…
The Ottoman's agricultural production collapsed.
"It is just as described in Revelation: 'And behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.' ①" After listening to Badars's report, Manuel, recalling all he had done for the current situation, sighed and recited.